Chapter 10, COMMUNICATION

Spam
Spam means sending massive amounts of electronic junk mail that people
haven't asked for.

In legal terms it means to send 'unsolicited commercial email'

This term is used because the vast majority of spam is sent in order to try and
persuade you to buy something.

Many ISP email packages offer 'spam filters' that try to prevent these emails
getting through to your inbox, but it is a very difficult problem to separate
spam from wanted emails. Your email service may have a 'Bulk' or 'Junk' box
that contain the diverted spam. It is then up to you to have a look to see if
there are some real emails accidentally caught by the filters.
E-mail
E-mail stands for 'Electronic Mail'.

The electronic transmission of mail allows you to send formatted text and
images to someone else with an email address.

Each E-mail user has a 'mailbox' with a unique address into which messages
can be sent ready for the recipient to collect and read.

If you have an account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Yahoo
then they will provide you with an email address and let you use their email
service for no extra cost.

You can also get an email address from one of the many free providers such
as Hotmail or Gmail.

Email is now one of the most common methods of communication - ask most
people that you know, they will probably have an email address.
Internet
The internet is made up of millions upon millions of small computer networks
all brought together to form the vast "Inter-Network".
It also includes other services such as:

• Instant messaging
• Chat rooms
• Email
• File transfers
• News groups
• Peer to peer networks
• Forums

A large part of the Internet is the 'World Wide Web" (WWW).

The World Wide Web (WWW)

The Internet is to the World Wide Web as Europe is to France. One is the container, the
other is an item within the container.

The complete web is organized as millions of 'web sites'. Each web site is
made up of one or more 'web pages'. Each page is made up of text, images or
multimedia such as video and sound.

So, the World Wide Web is actually made up of millions upon millions of
individual web pages.
Intranet
An intranet has almost the same services as the wider Internet, but it is a
private system. It is only accessible to authorized people within the
organization.

An intranet can over a local area network (LAN) where only staff in the same
building or locality can use it. Or it can run over a wide area network (WAN)
where staff from around the world can log in.

Some of the services include:

• Email
• File transfer
• Real time chat
• Web pages
 • Video and Audio streaming services

Extranet
An Extranet is one where people from outside the organization can connect to
the internal Intranet.

For example, external suppliers may have been set up to allow them to
communicate via the company Intranet.

Remote business offices may be set up to use an intranet.

Employees on business travel may use an Extranet.

VPN
A method of allowing a remote computer to connect securely to a private network
using external resources.

Cloud storage
Cloud storage is a service provided where your data is stored and managed
and backed up remotely by a specialist data center. When you want to gain
access to your data or files you connect to the cloud storage servers over a
network such as the internet.

Usually, data centers will charge a fee for managing the data on your behalf.
They may also charge money for transferring data back and forth between
their servers and your computer.

The data servers at the data center uses thousands of secondary storage
devices such as hard disks and solid-state drives to retain the data.
Types of cloud storage

Study from book page 175

URL
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It is pronounced "you-are-ell".
A URL is the unique web address for every webpage on the internet. For
example, 'www.teach-ict.com' is the unique URL for the home page of this
website.

Other examples of URLs are:

• www.youtube.com

• www.amazon.com

• www.bbc.co.uk

Protocol://website address/path/filename

ISP
ISP stands for 'Internet Service Provider'.

An ISP is a company that provides access to the internet for business and
individuals.

They usually charge a monthly fee for this service.

They will issue you with a user name and password and very often an email
address.

For individuals, the ISP normally provides a modem through which you can
log in and access the internet via one of the ISPs servers.

Examples of ISPs in the UK are (in no particular order):

• Sky.

• Virgin Media

HTTP
HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol.

HTTP is the set of rules that are used for transmitting files, (text, graphics,
sound, video etc.) over the World Wide Web.

Almost every web page needs to start with https://

This tells the browser that the rules for moving files from the web server will
be those defined by the protocol called 'http' and s for secure layer.
FTP
FTP stands for 'File Transfer Protocol'. It is an agreed, standard way of
moving data from a local computer to a remote one - and the other way
around of course.

With this method you have an FTP client installed on your local machine.
There are many free ones available online.

When you want to download a file, you enter the connection details of the
distant computer, such as URL host name or IP address into the application,
along with your password.
Blogs
A 'Blog' is a shortened form of the words Web log.

A blog is a web site like any other, but it is intended to offer an opinion on
something or stories about what is happening with the author.

Blogs started out mostly as online personal diaries, but now they have also
been taken up by business as an informal method of communicating with
customers and clients as well.

The difference between a standard web site and a blog is the way that stories
are 'posted' on to the site. A Blog uses a web-based application to publish the
story being written.

Wiki
A wiki is a web application which allows users from around the world to
collaborate.

They are able to add, edit and delete content posted by other users.

The most famous 'wiki' is the Wikipedia encyclopedia. This is now the World's
largest encyclopedia. It is believed to be as accurate as the Encyclopedia
Britannica.

earch Engine
A Search engine is a database on the World Wide Web that helps us to
quickly and easily find the web pages we want.

The user enters 'key words' or phrases on the subject that they are interested
in. The search engine searches its database looking for references to the key
words. It then returns web pages with links to the relevant websites it found.

The most popular or most visited websites are usually put near to the top of
the results page.

Some examples of search engines are:

• Google
• AltaVista
• Yahoo

The Advantages of Using Search Engines

• Time Savings.
• Relevance.
• Free Access. ...
• Comprehensive. ...
• Advanced Search.
Disadvantages
• Higher long-term cost
• High level of competition.
• It's interruptive.

Communication with other ICT users using email

Study from book page 170